KAILUA-KONA — Democratic Hawaii U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, in the national spotlight for her blunt criticisms of male behavior surrounding the controversial Supreme Court nomination, said questions about one of her own male political allies with a checkered domestic past are nothing but “more manufactured moral outrage led by the Republican leadership.”
Hirono grabbed headlines around two weeks ago when she told men in the country to “just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change” in regards to investigating the high court’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexual assault allegations.
Kavanaugh is accused of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford when the two were teenagers. Since Ford’s allegation became public, two more accusers have come forward with reports that Kavanaugh assaulted them when they were students.
On Friday, President Donald Trump ordered an FBI investigation be conducted into the claim before the full Senate votes on his nomination.
Since the Hawaii senator’s direct call, she’s been featured on national TV news broadcasts and was a quoted source in the New Yorker article that last week brought to light Deborah Ramirez’s allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when the two were freshmen at Yale University during the 1983-84 school year.
During the firestorm, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Hirono took $1,000 in political contributions from Delaware senator Tom Carper, who admitted to slapping his wife in a 1998 interview.
It was an accusation that Carper often denied after it first emerged when he was running for election in 1982, but later admitted.
“Did I slap my wife 20 years ago? Yes,” Carper admitted to a Delaware political reporter in 1998. “Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? No.”
Carper called the accusations when they first surfaced a smear campaign orchestrated by his political opponent and threatened to sue the New York Post, which reported on it, for libel.
Hirono, one of only four women on the 21-member Senate Judiciary Committee, took $1,000 from Carper’s First State PAC in June of this year, according to Federal Election Commission records, the Free Beacon reported.
The Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website launched in 2012, was the news-gathering organization that uncovered Carper’s 1998 admission in January.
Hirono, who declined to comment for the Free Beacon story, was called out last week by the Hawaii Republican Party for acting hypocritically.
Hirono told West Hawaii Today that the Republican Party was playing political games by calling into question any connection between the issues.
“This is more manufactured moral outrage led by the Republican leadership who have abandoned their moral compass,” Hirono emailed in a statement after West Hawaii Today asked her six questions about the topic.
“Republican Party officials are very busy supporting their sexual predator and liar president and his policies that hurt Hawaii families. Meanwhile, they have not a word to say about the attacks against Dr. Blasey Ford, and in some cases have encouraged and engaged in those attacks. Their manufactured moral outrage should be called what it is — fakery — and I will not be silenced or deterred in standing up for Dr. Blasey Ford and our Hawaii values of decency and fairness.”
Questions sent by West Hawaii Today included whether she was aware Carper admitted to hitting his wife when she accepted the money, and if she had plans to give it back.
Hirono was also asked what kind of forgiveness she felt Carper deserved for his actions and would she apply the same forgiveness to someone who admitted sexual assault, or Kavanaugh, if it turned out he was guilty.
The 1982 Post story that prompted Carper to threaten to sue reported that the domestic attack happened during a custody battle over his wife Diane’s two children.
Carper was accused of hitting his wife “so hard he gave her a black eye.” It said that Carper admitted the incident occurred during a 1981 deposition.
“Crazy Mazie’s self-righteousness and virtue signaling is pure hypocrisy,” said Hawaii Republican Party Chairman Shirlene DelaCruz Santiago Ostrov, in a press release. “If she’s serious about being a voice for the voiceless then she must return the wife-beater’s money.”
